


Running from Burning Bridges

by orphan_account



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Death, Gen, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-21
Updated: 2015-01-21
Packaged: 2018-03-08 11:58:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3208349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris Trott's life will always be plagued by memories of lost friends and dreams of fire. And in the beginning, he didn't have Smith to help him wake up from the nightmares.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Running from Burning Bridges

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rollthedice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rollthedice/gifts).



> This is dedicated to [Holi](trust-me-im-a-winchester.tumblr.com). An asshole made her fall off her motorcycle into the road and she broke her hand. 
> 
> Part of the Hat Films Royalty/Medieval AU.

Trott’s eyes opened suddenly to a starry sky that was just barely bleeding with the golden rays of sunrise. His cheeks felt sticky and wet. Slowly, he pulled himself into a sitting position.

He had been having nightmares of Sips’ death every night since the knights came to murder his teacher. Every night it was different, but every night was still the same. Sips died in front of Trott’s eyes, and Trott was helpless to even ease his suffering. Sometimes Trott watched the knights smash into the house and slice at his teacher with burning swords, sometimes they dragged him outside and tied him to the tree closest to the house and set it on fire, and sometimes Sips almost escaped with Trott before he was pulled away by the burning devilish knights on monstrous horses.

Trott could feel the exhaustion in his body. He hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep for weeks, but he couldn’t bear to lie down to sleep again. He stumbled over to the cart and found the alertness potion that he kept brewing every day. He poured the contents down his throat and waited to feel the subtle magic in the ingredients tug at his mind and his body to urge them into working despite the lack of rest.

He rubbed at his eyes and started getting ready to return to the road.

The alertness potion was a crutch, and he knew he needed to find a way to get away from it, but the only other option Trott could imagine was mead or making some sort of mixture of herbs that would dull his mind long enough to sleep properly. He knew enough to make that second option, but he didn’t want to resort to it quite yet.

Making that would become as addictive as the alertness potion had become. Where the alertness potion was carefully brewed to force his body into responding faster, Trott knew the herbal drugs would end up damaging some part of his body. 

He had written experimental formulas at night in a half-complete book, but they remained untested. 

Meanwhile, the option of getting himself drunk on mead was also out of the question. Trott had encountered quite a number of people on the road as he took on the role of a traveling merchant, but he was constantly on edge during his dealings with them. 

Anyone could suspect him of witchery and report him, or kill him.

Trott hadn’t taken any weapons from Sips’ cottage. The knives he carried were strictly intended for cooking and brewing. If anyone attacked, he would have to use the deadlier potions he had been successfully creating, or he would have to submit to their force.

It wasn’t like he had much to live for now. Nothing but the haunting memories of too many people he would never see again. 

\-------------------

Chris Trott’s life was not changed through any noble means, such as receiving a chance to prove his worth, saving a person in distress, or bringing honor and glory back to his village.

Nor did his life change through any mundane means: an apprenticeship with a craftsman, helping to birth an animal, or falling in the stream that ran along the eastern border of the village, like so many other children his age.

When he was seven years old, Chris’ life was changed forever when he heard the clapping of hooves against the dirt path that was the main road in the village. He was sitting on the damp ground behind his parents’ house, pulling at weeds in his mother’s garden. His small hands could only take one at a time, and he would grip it at the base with both hands, just like his mother showed him, so the roots would come up with the rest of the plant.

Chris had finally managed to pull up a particularly firm weed when his mother burst out of the back door in a hurry. Chris looked up at her and was about to show her the plant he pulled, but he didn’t get the chance.

His mother barely paused in her rapid gait to crouch down and scoop up Chris off the ground. Surprised, Chris held onto the plant as his mother ran. She held him tightly against her chest. His head was pressed against her skinny body, and his ear was filled with the sound of her heart.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

His mother stopped at the back door of another house. She didn’t set Chris down, and instead knocked hard on the door.

“Mum?” Chris whispered.

“Shh.”

The door opened, and while Chris couldn’t see who answered his mother, he recognized them from their voice. The nice lady about six houses away who took her daughter and Chris out several months ago and showed them how to get honey from a beehive.

“What on earth is happening?”

“Please, I need you to hide us. Or at least hide Chris.” He tried to move around in his mother’s arms to get a better view, but his mother only tightened her hold on him.

“What?”

“I’ll explain soon. Just, please.”

“I… I can let him in the storage shed, but I don’t think there will be room for you…”

“That’s fine.”

Finally, his mother let Chris down onto the ground. He looked up at her and the woman, who had just stepped out of her house and directed the two to a small door built into the back of the house. The woman crouched down and opened it.

“Mum, what’s going on?” Chris asked.

His mother knelt down on the ground to face him evenly. “Listen, Chris. I need you to stay in here for a while. Don’t come out unless I or Minty are outside to open it.”

“I’m hiding here?”

“Yes.”

“Are you hiding too?”

“I’m going to stay with Minty. I won’t be far, okay?”

Chris watched his mother’s face. She looked sad and scared. He hugged her long and hard. “Okay, Mum.”

“Be good and be quiet, okay, Chris?”

“Okay.”

He climbed in through the little door and squeezed himself into a narrow position between sealed clay jars and baskets lined with tar. There really wasn’t much space in here. Chris shifted around and pushed some of the jars and baskets out of his way so he was more comfortable. Built out of stone and clay, the walls were too thick to allow any light through, so the only illumination in the small space was from the door.

His mother and Minty were in the house. He could faintly hear them talking through one of the walls of the shed. Chris pressed his ear against that wall and listened carefully. Soon, he heard people moving around, close to where he hid. Chris held his mouth closed, just like his mother asked, but he strained to hear what was being said.

His mother, “--hasn’t used any magic for years and I thought we were safe--” Her voice softened and Chris couldn’t make out what was said next.

He heard Minty next. She was much clearer, “But it’s just him that they were hunting down? Not you or Chris?” There was a long pause and Chris strained, but he still couldn’t pick up what was being said.

Minty spoke again. “If it comes to that, I can find someone who can take him. My friend lives in a village on the other side of the mountain. He’ll be safe as long as he doesn’t, you know, show any traces of that.”

His mother’s voice slowly became more audible, “--told me there’s nothing to worry about. He’s nothing like his father.”

Anything else that was said was drowned out by a sudden uproar beyond the house. Chris drew back from the wall and stared at the wooden door to the shed. There was so much noise, but he couldn’t pick out any voices.

It was a little intimidating.

Chris pulled his knees close to his chest and hugged them.

He just needed to wait for his mum or Minty to open the door.

\-------------------

Chris was awoken by Minty opening the door, holding a small torch. Beyond Minty, the outside of the shed was dark. It was night.

“Minty?” Chris murmured sleepily. He blinked and started crawling out of the little shed.

“Chris, I’m going to take you on a little trip.”

He climbed out of the shed and looked skeptically at his surroundings. “But it’s dangerous at night,” Chris protested. That’s what everyone always told him, ever since he was old enough to understand words. “There’s wolves.”

“Yes, but we’re taking the path,” Minty said. She held her hand out and Chris reluctantly took it. “It’s not going to take long, and it’ll be morning soon. But you have to walk with me, Chris.”

“Where’s Mum?”

Minty shook her head. “Your mum’s busy with your father. They had to go somewhere. They’ll meet with you soon.”

Chris held Minty’s hand and watched her for a second.

Then he followed her lead into the house. Minty picked up two packs, one of which she handed to Chris. She held his hand again and brought him out of the house. They walked quietly through the silent, sleeping village. Chris looked from side to side. Apart from Minty and himself, nobody else was awake. There were no other lights in visible in the windows. Minty tugged gently on his wrist and Chris picked up his pace.

He felt nervous when they left the security of the village, but they were still on the path. The light from Minty’s torch lit the dirt and stones they walked upon, but little else. Chris stared at the ground, at each step he took beside Minty’s much-longer strides.

“Mum is okay?” Chris asked after he couldn’t stand listening to the sounds echoing in the forest on one side and the lightly-forested slope of the mountain on the other side.

“Hush, Chris,” Minty whispered. “I told you your Mum’s coming to get you later.”

He fell silent and alternated between looking at the ground, at the torch, and at the sky. After walking without a rest for a long time, sunlight finally began to color the sky. It reminded Chris that he hadn’t eaten for a long time, but he didn’t bring that up with Minty.

But soon, Minty stopped and let go of Chris. She took off her pack and reached inside. “There’s some food for you in yours,” she said as she brought out a piece of bread.

Chris couldn’t get to the bag quickly enough. He found some bread, two carrots, and an onion close to the top. A few of his articles of clothing were in there too, along with two of his father’s books. He was curious about the books, because his mum and father never let him touch those ones before, but he was mainly interested in the food. He sat down in the road and bit gratefully into the food.

“Thank you, Minty,” Chris said after a few bites.

“Eat quickly,” Minty said. “We’ve only got an hour more to walk, maybe. I want to get there before the whole village is awake.”

Chris obediently picked up his pace and scarfed down the food as quickly as he could without running the risk of choking.

When he was almost done, Minty reached down to help Chris off the ground. “You can finish the rest as you walk, right?”

“Yes.”

And that was it. They set off again as Chris held the last carrot by the leafy top, taking smaller bites.

\-------------------

Chris Trott was nine years old when he decided that his parents were never coming back for him. Wolfe did his best to keep it from Chris, but no amount of subtle optimism would mask the fact that Chris hadn’t received a single word from either of them.

Besides, it was at nine years that he finally managed to translate his mother’s note for him in the inside of his father’s book and he finally learned the truth.

His father was a witch.

His father had been killed by the King’s knights. He had been murdered simply because witchcraft was too dangerous to exist in the kingdom.

His mother was probably dead. She wanted to stay in the village to tell the knights that his father never had a child if they went hunting for relatives of the witch. The rest of the village would support that story to thank them for all the things his father had apparently done for the village, but she needed to send Chris away, where he would be safe.

So if she hadn’t returned for him, she was either dead or she had decided she wanted nothing more to do with him. Chris preferred the first option, as heartbreaking as it was.

Wolfe shook his head sadly when Chris confronted him about it. He pointed accusingly at the words in a language Wolfe couldn’t read and held back the tears.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Chris demanded. “They’re both dead, and you never told me! Minty told you, didn’t she?”

Wolfe nodded slowly. “Yes. Yes she did.” He moved forwards and pulled Chris into a squirming hug. “But you need to stay here. You can’t go back there because all they’ll see is your father in you.” His arms were shaking and Chris wondered if Wolfe was scared for him. “You’re not a witch. You don’t need to die for what your father was.”

Chris relented and let Wolfe hug him. Wolfe was a good man, and he had taught Chris how to make medicines, how to cook, how to take care of animals. Chris had grown attached to Wolfe in the two years that he had been living with him and he found some enjoyment in the new life he was living. Still, the loss of his parents left a gap in his soul that he didn’t know how to fill. Wolfe wasn’t a father to him. He was a friend of a friend, a teacher, a mentor, but he would never be a father.

Chris wanted to leave Wolfe and be alone to think over his mother’s words again.

He was alone in the world. Nothing would ever change that.

He pushed Wolfe away and the older man let him go.

“When you’re ready,” Wolfe said hesitantly, “I’ll be in the workshop. I can show you how to keep thicker medicinal potions from boiling over. You wanted to know that yesterday. You’re very close to getting it right.” He offers a slight smile.

Chris didn’t say anything. He picked up the book again and stared at his mother’s note.

\-------------------

Chris Trott was eleven when Wolfe stopped supervising him in the workshop. He was good at making medicines. He knew the properties of every plant, every mineral, and every animal byproduct. He could brew medicinal potions perfectly, and every cure and supplement he made was guaranteed to work. He had taken over the cooking too, which left Wolfe more time to work with the animals and take up cartography, drawing detailed maps of the village and the surrounding lands.

Chris was in the little workshop in the back of the house one rainy day, working on a simple potion for alleviating menstrual pain when someone knocked harshly on the door leading outside.

Quickly, Chris moved the two books he had been looking at—the two books from his parents’ house—and hid them behind a row of clay jars. He got up from the stool he had been sitting on and moved to the door.

Opening the door revealed a tall man with a small beard from the other side of the village hunched over and huddled under the small hatch, out of the rain. Chris moved aside to let him in, and the man entered and sighed with relief.

“Thank you,” the man murmured. He was panting, and mud was splattered high on his clothes.

“Wolfe is working inside the house,” Chris said.

The man nodded. “Would you bring him here? Quickly, too.”

Chris left his work and opened the door to the house. Wolfe was hunched over a piece of parchment spread across an uneven table. A beeswax candle burned next to him to illuminate his work. He was marking at the parchment meticulously and his face was tight with concentration.

“Wolfe,” Chris called. “Someone’s here to see you.”

Wolfe looked up from the map. “Oh, Tom, what brings you here?” He set his tools down and walked over to the workshop door. “Do you need any remedies? Is anyone sick?”

Tom nodded gravely. “My son, Harry, was bitten by something while he was collecting wood. We don’t know what it is, but he can’t move and he is very hot and sweating. The place where he was bitten is turning colors.”

Chris saw the concern in Wolfe’s expression at the exact time that he himself became worried for the son.

“When was this?” Wolfe demanded. Meanwhile, Chris rooted around in the racks of completed potions and medicinal pastes for the ones needed for poisonous bites.

Tom said, “He came back to the house several minutes ago, but he was walking very slowly. I came as soon as I saw the bite.”

Wolfe turned to Chris. “We’ll need the medicines for snake bites and mad foaming beasts,” he instructed. Chris had already collected those items, and he seized a small bundle of cloth strips. He found his small bag and stuffed it with the medicines.

Wolfe disappeared into the house for a second and re-emerged with two old, worn cloaks, one for himself and a smaller one for Chris. They both threw the cloaks over their bodies and followed Tom out into the rain.

They arrived at Tom’s home soon. Their patient Harry was lying on the table. He was trembling and breathing quick shallow breaths.

Chris allowed Wolfe to take over for this. He examined the exposed bite with Wolfe and mentally came to the same conclusion as the one Wolfe declared to the family, but he otherwise stood back. He handed Wolfe the herbal paste, the bandages, and the potion in order that Wolfe was about to ask for them.

The older boy was still shivering from the effects of the poisonous bite when Wolfe finally turned to the family in order to explain what would happen next, but he looked a bit less sickly. Chris tore his gaze away from the suffering Harry and listened instead to Wolfe.

“So I’ll be back tomorrow to check on his injury. If he gets worse during the night, come at once and knock on the front door this time.”

“Will he recover?”

“Chris and I will do all we can.”

Tom and his family turned on Chris, who suddenly felt very small. “You help Wolfe as much as you can.” Chris nodded.

“He’s been a great help as long as he’s been here,” Wolfe said. “He can make remedies and cures with a skill close to my own.”

“You’ve taught him very well, Wolfe.”

Chris held his tongue as Wolfe politely turned down Tom’s offer of making them a meal and they headed back home in the rainy night. His mind strayed back to those two books he had hidden in the workshop. He thought of those two books, which were the books that Minty had included in Chris’ belongings when she took him out of his home.

They were both filled with his father’s knowledge about how the natural world works with magic, and how witches can access that connection.

One of the books was was full of information about medicines that could be made by utilizing the natural flow of magic and energy in the world. The other was like a reference for how each component of nature had its own scientific and magical properties. It was amazing how Minty had known to give Chris those two books in particular, but it might not have been her choice. The book on medicine was the one with his mother’s note. The reference also had a note on the inside cover, but it was a pointless note to his father from someone named Sips.

Of course, that one was in Latin just like his mother’s. Minty couldn’t read Latin, so she may have thought it was from his father.

But the information in the books was much more comforting than his mother’s farewell note, so Chris had immersed himself in the text. He read everything as many times as he could and he was grateful for Wolfe’s inability to read the foreign language.

Wolfe opened the door for Chris and he shed his wet clothes, hung them by the fire, and returned to the workshop to clean up and put the unused medicines away. He started on the pain relief potion that had been described in one of the books.

Chris never felt the currents of magic like his father had described in the books, but he understood the idea of how they worked.

Like magic, his attempts were successes every time he used the knowledge written in those books.

Still, the constant mention of witch powers and magic in the text remained as the slightest shadow at the edge of the feeling of euphoria Chris experienced whenever he made a potion correctly.

\-------------------

It was a warm summer’s day, a rare sunny day, when Chris’ life changed again.

Travelers from the south had come by the village recently, bringing with them gossip about the King and the religion that was becoming more and more popular amongst all people. Wolfe listened to some of the idle talk, but he shook his head and left the people alone when the travelers mentioned that the god worshipped in this religion could cure people of any sickness and grant them a long life.

“Medicine and man’s own body are the only things that can cure people of sickness, Chris,” Wolfe said as he devoted his attention to another map. “If a man doesn’t do anything for himself, then he can’t expect anything to help him. No, the only thing this religion is really doing to the people is making them more afraid of things. They’re more afraid of the beasts in the woods, more afraid of their own death, and more afraid of each other and witches.”

Chris was glad he was only listening to Wolfe talk through the open door. He was clutching a wooden bowl full of dry herbs tightly. He had recently reread a portion of his father’s reference that explained what witches really were, and he couldn’t help but fear that he was more like his father than he ever wanted to be.

If anyone ever suspected him of being a witch, even if it was just for the fact that his father had been a witch—

The herbs in the bowl burst into sparkling flames and Chris dropped it in shock.

As they quickly dissolved into dry dust, this might not have been a problem had the doors been closed. But they were open, and it just so happened that a pair of the travelers had arrived at the open door of the workshop, just in time to see the sparks spontaneously come to life in Chris’ hands.

Chris was already in shock from the sparks appearing before his eyes. Now, suddenly, his ears were ringing with screams and shouts of, “Witch! That boy is a witch!”

He felt himself being dragged roughly from the stool by hands that definitely did not belong to Wolfe. Breathing rapidly and panicked, Chris stared up at the two travelers, pointing and accusing and grabbing.

Wolfe pushed his way into the workshop and shoved the two travelers out of the building. He shut the door and barred it, then knelt down next to Chris and helped him sit up.

“What happened?” Wolfe asked tenderly. He laid one of his large hands against Chris’ cheek.

Chris’ eyes were wide and his heart was racing, but he managed to speak. “I—the stuff in the bowl caught fire. I swear I didn’t—”

“Did it look like witchery?” Wolfe said.

Chris felt sick. He was overwhelmed with terror. He thought of his last memories of being at his old home, hearing his mother. It was a nightmare that he was reliving right now, only it was Chris that would be torn apart by the fear of witches this time.

“It—yes.”

Wolfe’s face hardened. His hand gently squeezed Chris’ shoulder.

“I’m not going to let them kill you. Stay in the house. Hide under the bed and don’t you dare open the door for anyone.”

Chris nodded. Wolfe stood up and pulled Chris to his feet.

“I promise you, Chris,” Wolfe said firmly. “You’re going to be okay.”

Chris watched Wolfe exit out the front door and quickly hurried over to Wolfe’s bed. He crawled under it and moved some of the bundles under it to hide most of his body from view, if anyone came in and looked for him. Lying on his chest, he crossed his arms in front of him.

He considered covering his ears, but after a second of trying that, he immediately put down the idea. It was scary enough hiding here, but he couldn’t tolerate blocking out the sounds of outside. Instead, he covered his eyes and watched his imagination blend the old memories of hiding in the storage shed with the horrible reality of the present.

It was getting louder, so it was hard for Chris to pick out everything that was being said.

The travelers were shouting. “This man has been hiding a witch-child!”

Villagers were arguing. Some were taking the side of the travelers, while many doubted the newcomers’ claims.

“Who?”

“Little Chris?”

“He’s not a witch.”

“He’s just a child.”

“How could Chris be a witch?” A loud voice boomed over the others. Chris recognized it as Tom and his heart leapt. “We all know little Chris! Remember when he first arrived? He could hardly carry a bucket of water and now he’s helping Wolfe treat our sick. He helped Wolfe save my son from certain death! We’ve seen him grow up here! We know Chris.”

“That’s true.”

“But if he is a witch, he could have called the beasts and the sicknesses to our village.”

“Why do you people say he’s a witch?”

“Chris is not a witch!” Wolfe said firmly. “I have raised him for years and he is a smart boy, but he’s not a witch!”

“Who are you to accuse one of our own of being a witch?”

“I saw it! The boy summoned fire in his hands!”

“I saw it too!”

“Who are you? Just a traveler!”

“Where is Chris?”

“Let him come out here and speak for himself?”

“How could you ask him to defend himself! He’s a child!”

The arguing grew louder and Chris pressed himself firmer against the wall. It was closer to the voices from outside, but it was also further away from being found. He kept his eyes shut tight.

“I say that child is a witch. He must be burned to cleanse this world of evil!”

“I will not murder a child!”

“Chris is not a witch!”

“Purge the village of evil!”

“I won’t let you touch that boy.”

“Keep away from my house!”

Chris covered his ears again and the shouting faded to a muffled cacophony. Gradually, it faded and he reluctantly removed his hands from his ears. It was quiet outside, but he could faintly hear voices still arguing somewhere in the village. Chris shook with fear and buried his face in his arms again.

Wolfe wouldn’t be able to save him. Even if they didn’t burn him today, the whole village would suspect him now. He wouldn’t be able to hide what he was becoming. Shaking, Chris pushed himself out from under the bed and listened carefully.

It didn’t sound like anyone was nearby.

Chris quietly ran over to his bed and took out two empty bags that had been stuffed under it. He pulled the blanket off his bed and stuffed it into one, then stuffed his second set of clothes into the other bag. He ran to the other side of the house and grabbed some food, a bowl, one of Wolfe’s stone knives, one of his iron knives, the smallest cooking pot Wolfe had, and a piece of flint. He crammed them into the bag with his clothes.

He took his cloak and his boots and cautiously, quietly returned to the workshop. He couldn’t take the potions and medicines that he knew he would end up needing, but he did grab the two books and fit them in the bag with his blanket. Chris threw the cloak around his shoulders and stuffed his feet into the boots.

He had to leave now.

They were distracted now, debating his fate.

If he wanted to live, he had to run.

He opened the door and let out a little shriek at finding someone already there. Harry was standing just outside, although he looked more concerned than accusatory.

“They’re saying you might be a witch,” he said slowly.

“Are they planning on killing me?” Chris asked.

The boy shrugged. “Most of them don’t want to. But the new guys keep convincing more people to burn you in the center of the village.” His eyes narrowed.

“I have to leave,” Chris blurted out. “They’ll kill me even if they don’t do it now.”

“I know. I’m going to help you.”

With the fear still bleeding through his mind, Chris was apprehensive when Harry extended his hand towards Chris.

Still, he accepted it and together, the boys ran into the woods.

\-------------------

Harry and Chris slowed down their rapid pace when they reached the beginnings of the foothills. Here there was less cover, as the density of the woods gradually gave way to rocky, grassy hills. Harry and Chris stopped on the edge of the hills, staring out into the expanse.

“Do you know where you’re going?” Harry asked.

Chris thought back to the maps Wolfe had been making for years now. The hills would become mountains as he headed in this direction, but if he started heading northeast, he would find a very small mountain pass that led to generally unmapped territory. It was rumored that druids lived in the woods there.

It seemed like it might be a safe option for Chris at the moment.

“Into the mountains,” he told Harry.

Harry moved to stand in front of Chris. “Find someone to help you out, Chris. And don’t come back here.”

“You don’t have to tell me that, mate,” Chris said.

He moved past Harry and set off walking into the vast hills, to the mountains beyond.

Although the sun was still shining, Chris was grateful for his cloak. Clouds were rolling across the sky just past the southern end of the mountains. At his pace, the storm that was no doubt contained in those clouds would reach him just before he reached the first mountain. He wasn’t sure if he could make it to the mountain pass, but if he could find some sort of shelter in the mountains, he could rest for the night.

He had a good head start on the search party that might come after him, but only Harry knew where he was going. Even if Harry was forced to tell the village where Chris had run off to, all he had to offer was ‘the mountains.’

And Chris had no intention of remaining in the mountains longer than necessary.

The wind was blowing along with the storm clouds, and the cool air brought some relief to the heat of the day. Chris maintained a steady pace as he crossed the open space. According to Wolfe’s map, there was a small stream as he neared the mountains, but he would not arrive there anytime soon. He didn’t need to exhaust himself from lack of water before he had a chance to quench his inevitable thirst.

The trek across the grassy hills was long and Chris had plenty of time to reflect on things.

His mother’s last words to him.

His father’s last message for him.

The lie Minty and Wolfe told him in an attempt to keep him from breaking down from the loss.

His years in the village, the friends and connections he made, and how he had to leave all of that behind because of a few stupid sparks that he hoped never to see.

Chris clenched his fists as he kept walking.

He wanted to curse his father for passing on his witch status to Chris, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to say it. After reading about how magic was just the ability to have more control over the natural processes that already existed in the world, he couldn’t label magic or witches as being evil. It was people who decided what to do with the things they could do, and there were plenty of evil people who weren’t witches.

It wasn’t his father’s fault that Chris was in this situation. Chris wasn’t walking into unknown territory alone--on the slim chance that he might find someone who could help or at least hide away from civilization--simply because there were witches who used their power for selfish or malicious purposes.

It was all because of that damn King.

Chris stopped walking and looked over his shoulder. The woods from which he had emerged with Harry were far behind him, almost out of sight on the distant horizon. Meanwhile, the storm clouds were almost upon him, and the skies had grown darker. He still had quite a ways to go before he reached the mountains, so he wrapped his cloak more securely around his body, pulled the hood over his head, and picked up the pace.

It wasn’t long after Chris did that when he heard the rain a short distance away. As he walked faster now, he pulled his wooden bowl out of his bag.

The rain finally struck and Chris jumped when he felt the heavy drops falling onto his covered head and back. He held the bowl out in front of him as he continued to make his way towards the pass between two mountains before him. Rain splattered into the bowl, splashing his hand and face with water, but it gradually began to fill.

Chris tipped the water into his mouth and was immediately grateful for it. He hadn’t realized how dry his throat was from running through the woods and walking across the hills. He continued to fill the bowl with rainwater and drinking until his hand was too wet and cold to continue. Chris felt much better, so he brought the bag in front of him again as he walked and stuffed the slightly wet bowl back in.

Thunder rumbled above him in the sky and Chris picked up his pace. The mountains were so close now, and he was sure that he would find some sort of shelter in them. At least the storm would delay any determined self-proclaimed witch hunters from chasing after him. 

He breathed a long sigh of relief when he finally made it to the rocky base of the mountains. A stream cut through between two mountains, and he continued beside it. He kept looking around for any sort of shelter. He ended up leaving the side of the stream and trekking in a different direction towards where he was fairly certain that the druid woods were. 

Chris felt a weird tugging at his left side and turned to look in that direction, wondering if his cloak was caught on something. Instead, just through the mist of rain, he caught sight of something shadowy in the face of the mountain. He squinted to try to make it out better. It might be a shelter… or it might just be a shadow on the rock. It was getting fairly dark, after all.

Chris decided to take the chance and headed over to the shadow. Amazingly, it actually did turn out to be a small cave that extended deep into the mountain, but was partially collapsed. It was just big enough for Chris to stay out of the rain, however, so he sat down just inside the entrance and pulled off his cloak.

He found a large broken chunk of the cake to drape his soaked cloak over, and he removed the rest of his wet clothes and hung them up as best as he could in the cave.

“They’re not going to dry,” he said to himself. Unless he got another miraculous sunny day, he might just have to carry around or wear damp clothes tomorrow. There wasn’t anything he could use to make a fire, unless he burnt one of his books. He would just have to deal with what he had until he reached the woods on the other side of the mountains. If he remembered Wolfe’s map correctly, the pass would soon become extremely narrow and remain that way until it connected with the wood. 

Chris took his blanket out of his bag and wrapped it tightly around himself. It kept out the chill, but it was nothing like Wolfe’s house back in the village, with the straw bedding underneath and the fire warming the cozy little space. 

He fell asleep thinking of that house. 

He woke up dreaming of an unidentifiable figure burning while bound to a wooden stake.

\-------------------

Chris Trott was fifteen and he didn’t remember the point in time that he started to see Sips as a father. Sometimes the old witch was genuinely kind and supporting of Trott’s attempts to improve his physical and magical strength, and sometimes he would crack inappropriate jokes at the worst times until Trott couldn’t focus on what he was doing. Sometimes Sips would disappear for hours at a time and return with absolutely nothing to show for it, and sometimes he would hover over Trott’s shoulder all day, critiquing everything he did and questioning his actions at every step.

As unpredictable as Sips might have been, Trott had come to love the attention and care the older witch showed him. Sips didn’t care about what happened with Trott’s weak and uncontrolled magic at the start of their time together, which somehow led to Trott gaining a better initial control over it.

He didn’t have to worry about the magic showing itself anymore. He could accept it as a part of himself and use Sips’ mastery of his own magic to inspire a similar control in himself.

“You don’t have the same power as I do, Trott,” Sips would say. “It’ll make it easier to keep it hidden that way. Just don’t overuse it, or you’re going to kill yourself.”

Trott had learned what was overuse of his magic. Working it into medicines, potions, and even cooking left him feeling elated from the stimulation of his witchery. However, trying to use it in its raw form, for light, fire, healing, scrying, or any of the ways that Sips could use his magic with ease--it drained Trott and sometimes left him bedridden for days.

But Trott was content with learning potion-making, and Sips certainly had a lot to teach him. Sips didn’t say anything about the note in Trott’s book, but he had listened respectfully when Trott told him that his father was dead. He had skimmed the books, declared they were acceptable for learning about magic, and shoved eight more books at Trott, all in Latin.

The past few years had been such a relief to Trott. He might not fit in with the rest of the world, but he fit here, with Sips.

He sat on a small stool in front of a small pot simmering gently over a bed of coals. Sips was pacing behind him. This time, Sips told him to make the most lethal thing he could with his skill, so Trott had gathered the ingredients that he knew were all neat-deadly. He had organized them by their attribute, determining the order that they should probably go into the potion, cut up some of them, and started brewing. He kept precise notes on a spare scrap of parchment.

“No, no, it’s no good, Trott,” Sips complained after Trott added the fifth ingredient. “You wanna make something that can actually kill something, not just leave them whining on the ground like a miserable little fish.” 

“I’m not done yet!”

“It’s not going to work.” Sips took the potion away from Trott and dumped it into the fire. It turned the flames a sickly green color and let out a smell like decomposing feces. Trott coughed and covered his mouth and nose to avoid breathing it in.

Trott glared accusingly at Sips. “I was going to add more to it!”

Sips shook his head. “You don’t need to make a dangerous potion strictly out of dangerous ingredients. It takes some good stuff, some neutral stuff, and some bad stuff. Think about what ingredients can boost the effects of others. Work on that, then show me what you’ve learned.”

Trott groaned and began walking away. “It took me ages to find those mushrooms!”

“Good. Don’t come back until you find more.” Sips called after Trott.

He grabbed a basket next to the door and stormed away into the forest. 

Trott thought long and hard about what Sips had said. If he was going to magnify the poison in that mushroom so it wouldn’t be broken down as it cooked, he needed to think of something else. 

Maybe he could make it like he made medicinal potions now, but instead of the key healing plants and minerals, he would add the mushrooms? No, there had to be a smarter way than that.

Trott wandered deeper into the woods, oblivious of what was about to happen in the cottage he left behind.

\-------------------

In the remains of the cottage, Trott drifted like a spirit. His face was expressionless, yet still dirtied by a slurry of ash and tears. 

He picked out all the books written in Latin, even the ones that had been damaged by the fire. He collected food, bottles, pots, potions, blankets, clothes, flint, some spare wood, ropes, and anything of use. He left anything that had once been sentimental behind, apart from the books. 

Trott hauled Sips’ body to the back and buried him next to the stupid garden before leaving with Sips’ quiet little pony. He settled the pony into the soft harness, then took the reins and climbed into the seat.

He didn’t look back as he left his home and his second father behind.

\-------------------

_Trott was running to the little cottage. He had to get there in time. Sips needed him. He had done so much for Trott for years, and Trott refused to allow anything to happen to him._

_When he neared the cottage, Trott stared in shock at the flames and smoke engulfing the little home. He tripped over a root and fell hard on the ground._

_“No!” Trott screamed. “Sips!” He shakily pulled himself to his feet and stumbled towards the cottage again._

_He had to still be alive._

_If they set the cottage on fire, they might have just left him inside to burn with it._

_He wasn’t dead for sure yet._

_The heat was unbearable as Trott ran nearer to the flames. He covered his mouth with his sleeve, but it did nothing to help his eyes. He squeezed his eyes shut against the smoke pouring out of the house and reached blindly for the door._

_It was hot, too hot, just like the rest of the house. Trott shouted out in pain as he pushed it, as his hand burned on the burning wood. He tried to open his eyes to see where Sips was, but the thick smoke was preventing it._

_“Sips!” Trott choked out. He hoped his voice would carry over the roar of the flames around him. “Sips!”_

_“Trott…” came a weak voice. Trott instantly turned in the direction he thought it came from and ran into something hot and burning._

_He shrieked and jumped back._

_“Sips, where are you?”_

_“What are you doing in here you big dumb-dumb?” Sips said faintly._

_“I need to get you out of here!”_

_“Go back into the woods, Trott.”_

_“No!” Trott found Sips on the floor and grabbed at his arms, trying vainly to pull him away from the fire, away from death._

_“They’re coming back, Trott.”_

_Trott’s eyes opened wide. Far too slowly, he turned towards the open door of the cottage. Through the smoke and flames, he could see a pair of tall men in armor advancing towards him. He tried to crawl away, but the flames suddenly engulfed him--_

\-------------------

Trott weakly opened his eyes. This latest nightmare was as etched into his mind as the last ones. The knights caught up with them while they were in the house together. They had been seized and bound together to a pair of crossed logs outside the house. They had both been surrounded by more wood and the pyre was lit, but only Sips burned. The flames touched Trott but did not consume his body. He listened to Sips cry out in pain for so long before the nightmare let him go.

Shaking, Trott sat up. The pony gazed at him oddly, then snorted and turned away.

“Fuck off,” Trott grumbled. He crawled over to the cart again and found the alertness potion. Soon, his senses buzzed and he sighed in relief.

“It’s been three months since then,” he muttered. The hand holding the empty vial shook and he set it down carefully before he smashed it. “For fuck’s sake, why do I keep dreaming of that?”

Angry at himself, he prepared the cart quickly and led the pony back to the harness. 

“Come on, you dirty fucker,” he said irritably. The pony nipped at his hand but relented to be attached to the cart once again, perhaps due to Trott’s diminishing energy. He had been traveling less and less each day, so the pony may have been expecting another early rest.

Trott tried to be angry, but it was tiring, so he just settled himself onto the cart seat and sent the pony off down the road.

He had considered trying to scry for even a few seconds when he first set out. However, Trott had long since lost his curiosity for what lie ahead. He would go wherever the road took him. Eventually, he figured he might end up at an actual city, provided he lived that long.

He hadn’t been traveling long when the road arrived at a rather large and noisy stream. Trott stopped the pony and stepped down from the cart.

Holding the pony’s lead securely, Trott examined the bridge before him. It was desperately in need of repair. Most of its stones appeared to be loose, and many of the wooden planks appeared to be rotted from the high waters.

He shifted his gaze to the waters below the bridge. They were flowing rapidly with a dull roar. Trott reached down and threw a handful of leaves into it. They were instantly sucked away down the stream.

Trott sighed. It looked like he was going to have to find another place to cross.

He gently tried to coax the pony to step off the path and follow the water upstream. The pony took one look at the uneven earth and stood firm, snorting and shaking its head. Trott grumbled and tugged lightly on the lead.

A voice echoed in the woods. “There’s no place to cross upstream.”

Trott stopped and looked around for the source of the voice. “Who are you? How do you know that?”

A young man who appeared a little older than Trott stepped out from behind a cluster of trees on the other side of the stream. He was as dirty as Trott, but his hair somehow shone an unusual brownish gold color in the spots of light coming down through the leaves. He smiled kindly at Trott and stood on the far side of the stream, right next to the dilapidated bridge. 

“Sorry, mate.”

Trott stared once again at the waters. They didn’t look safe at all. It looked like he was going to have to travel two days back and take the other fork in the road. What a waste of time.

He turned his back on the stranger and pulled to direct the pony to head back the way he had come. Behind him, he heard a faint shuffling sound, along with the sound of something very small falling into the water.

Trott looked back at the stream just in time to see the stranger leap from the broken bridge, brandishing a knife at Trott. The stranger barreled straight into Trott, knocking him to the ground and startling the pony to drag the cart a short distance away. The other man--the thief--slammed Trott’s shoulders forcefully into the dirt and the knife disappeared from view, but Trott soon felt where it had been moved.

Trott was sprawled on his back, his body still with shock at the sensation of the warm knife pressed to his throat.

The thief leered down at him and pressed the knife harder against Trott’s neck. “Your cart and your horse are the best things that have come by my bridge for weeks,” he said threateningly.

Trott couldn’t believe that he was going to die like this. Instead of being hunted down by villagers or knights or self-proclaimed do-gooders, he was going to be slaughtered by some thief for the worthless items in his cart.

It was so amazing and unbelievable. He let out a short laugh, unintentionally. The thief glared down at him.

“What the fuck? Do you think I’m playing around?”

“No, mate, I’m not laughing at you,” Trott said quickly. “I just—I didn’t think I would be killed like this. It’s actually much nicer than I thought. It’s a nicer way to be killed.”

A slit throat would be a much faster and less painful death than burning. Even if the thief threw him into the stream, Trott was sure the current would push him down to the very-probable rocky depths and he would be dead soon.

His death would be cold and quick, instead of hot and long like Sips’ death.

He felt the knife blade press against his throat harder. Trott tensed instinctively when he felt it slice into his skin and blood start to seep rapidly from the wound.

The thief drew back and pressed the tip of the knife against Trott’s heart.

“What, did you actually think you were going to die?” He laughed. “For what? You’re a fucking merchant, aren’t you? Educated and all that! You don’t have to worry about where your next meal is coming from all the time! I bet you—” Suddenly the thief broke off, staring at Trott in surprise.

More specifically, he was staring at Trott’s neck.

Trott reached for his neck and touched the wound. Was he bleeding out faster than he thought he was?

He felt blood, but he couldn’t find the sharp, stinging sensation in the spot that was supposed to have been cut. He couldn’t find the cut at all, even when he raked his nails over the bloodstained skin. What…

“You…” the thief breathed. “You’re a witch.”

Trott’s heart thudded heavily against his chest. “What?” he said weakly.

“I saw--I saw orange sparks on that place. I cut you and…”

Trott shoved the thief away from him. He shuffled backwards in a panic. “No, no, no,” he said. It felt like one of his dreams, one of the nightmares when he was with Sips when the knights came and accused them of existing with magical abilities. 

“The King’s been hunting witches,” the thief added carefully, watching Trott’s reactions. 

Trott felt weak. But he was tired, so tired of running. He narrowed his eyes and stood up. He was shorter than the thief, but he didn’t care anymore. If he was going to die, it wasn’t going to be like all the ways he had nightmares about. 

“I bet the King’s been hunting thieves too.” Trott said accusingly. He glared at the thief with all the strength he could muster. The taste of the alertness potion burned at the back of his throat and reminded him that he hadn’t eaten anything since the night before. However, he didn’t feel the strength of the alertness potion right now.

Right now it was just Trott and all he had experienced, standing up to this thief who had no right to be judging him and daring him to deny him the right to fight for his life.

The thief seemed taken aback. He gazed into Trott’s eyes and for a long moment, they stood like that.

Finally, the thief broke down and laughed. 

“You’ve got a point there, witch,” he chuckled. “I’ve had more people tell me they’ll cut my hands off than them that tell me to dunk my head in water cause I’m so filthy.” He shook his hair back and forth and Trott barely suppressed a chuckle at the way the grease and dirt caked it.

“That’s disgusting,” Trott said. “For a dirty thief who lives under a bridge you sure are… dirty.”

The thief smiled. “Sorry I tried to kill you.”

Trott’s smile dropped and he tilted his head. “What are you trying to do?” The thief shrugged and kept up his dumb charming smile. “You cut into my damn throat? You think a smile and a ‘sorry’ is going to make me like you?”

The thief considered that. He leaned close to Trott and winked. “Does that help?”

Trott groaned and turned to walk away. 

“My name’s Smith! Alex Smith!”

Trott reached the pony and took its reins. The lure of companionship was so tempting. He missed Sips so much and maybe he could start to move on if he had someone besides the pony to talk to.

He opened his mouth and closed it. He climbed up onto the seat.

Then he looked back at the young man, at Smith, standing where Trott left him on the road. His knife had been put away but that damn smile was still there.

“Chris Trott. Get on before I throw something at you that’ll make you filthier.”

The cart bounced and the pony whinnied in protest at the extra weight. Trott faced the road again to keep Smith from seeing his face now.

Because that smile was contagious.


End file.
